The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has officially found its Haymitch Abernathy. Lionsgate has officially cast Joseph Zada (Invisible Boys) in the lead role first played by Woody Harrelson in the original Hunger Games trilogy. It’s also been announced that Whitney Peak (Gossip Girl) will star opposite Zada as Lenore Dove Baird. The upcoming 2026 film is based on the book by the same name by Suzanne Collins. The book and movie both serve as prequels to the respective Hunger Games books and movie adaptations. The film releases November 20, 2026. It will join a franchise that’s already grossed $3.3 billion at the box office.

Zada currently stars in the Australian series Invisible Boys and will next be seen in the adaptation of E. Lockhart‘s We Were Liars, as well as a limited series adaptation of John Steinbeck‘s East of Eden opposite Florence Pugh, Mike Faist, Martha Plimpton, Tracy Letts, and Chris Abbott from Netflix. Peak is best known for her role in the reboot of Gossip Girl as well as Becca in Hocus Pocus 2. Next, she’ll star in the upcoming shark thriller Shiver with Phoebe Dynevor (Bridgerton), and in 4 Kids Walk into a Bank alongside Liam Neeson (Taken) and Teresa Palmer (A Discovery of Witches).

‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Has Already Technically Broken a Record

Published just last month, the book Sunrise on the Reaping will be adapted from sold roughly 1.5 million copies during its first week of sale. That number is also three times as many copies as the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay sold back in 2010. It’s also twice as many as the first week of sales for the other Hunger Games prequel book The Ballad of the Songbird and Snakes, which was also adapted into a film. That film starred Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) and Tom Blyth. Sunrise on the Reaping (book and movie) takes place during the 50th Annual Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. This special Hunger Games will also include the reaping of fan-favorite Haymitch Abernathy, long before we see him as the surly drunken Victor in The Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping releases into theaters November 20, 2026.

via Collider